


Search For Shelter Near The Mines We Swept

by geckoholic



Series: author's favorites [14]
Category: Terminator Genisys (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 16:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6058450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Two soldiers misplaced by time, and just this once, maybe, given a reprise.</em>
</p><p>Loosely connected snapshots from the first month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Search For Shelter Near The Mines We Swept

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so. Shortly after I watched the movie last summer, I set out to write a first time fic that gives these two the passionate motel room sex they damn well deserve. This is... not that fic. Nope, this grew plot and feelings on me instead. I'll be writing that other fic too, never fear, but this one turned out to be more emotions than smut. Because apparently, when it comes to these two, I have a lot of emotions. Like. A LOT. 
> 
> Beta-read by alyse. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Safe To Land" by Jars Of Clay.

There's so much that's new for both of them. Sarah realizes this as they make their first stop out of the city, at a gas station near the highway. It's her world more than it is his, still, but she's thirty-three years removed from everything she's used to and half the headlines on the newspapers by the counter don't make sense. There's a girl about her age typing on what Sarah _knows_ is her phone, but it looks like something out of Star Trek to her anyway. After fighting an artificial intelligence from the future some twenty-four hours ago, it shouldn't seem weird, but it does. 

Kyle's hovering behind her, towering really, mouthing the names of items on display, eyes flying her way a few times like he wants to ask for an explanation but doesn't quite dare. He'll need a crash course at some point, to avoid raising suspicion. Just as soon as she feels a little more at home in this decade herself, she'll give him one. 

Right now, they can take care of something a little more basic. “You hungry?” 

He detaches himself from the world of wonders in front of him, gaze honing in on her, and nods. “Yeah. I guess.” 

“What do you like?” she asks, and realizes how dumb a question that is when his eyes widen, and he goes back to scanning the display, although now it's a little more nervously, as if she's given him a quiz he knows he's going to fail. “I mean, generally. What did you guys even have, by the way of food? Anything at all that looks familiar?” 

He steps past her and picks some cans of soup off the shelf. “These will outlive mankind, I'm pretty sure. I know those.” 

Sarah makes a face. “Okay, then let's leave them here for future generations in need.” 

He shrugs and puts them back, and she looks around, lets her gaze sweep over the small store for something familiar, something that'd be a worthy introduction to pre-apocalyptic convenience food. The answer is quite obvious, really. She marches to the candy aisle, snatching as much chocolate and fruit gums and potato chips as she can carry. Once they've found a place to settle in for the night, she'll introduce him to pizza – not the frozen kind that barely deserves the name they could get here – or Chinese food, whichever they come across first. Pops will insist they shift back to something a little more nutritious soon enough, always concerned for her well-being and claiming it's part of his programmed mission objective to keep her healthy. 

Kyle stands back and watches while she pays, an amused quirk to his lips as he peers at each item. When the cashier pings a packet of cherry-flowered fruit drops, he points, crows a little in a way that she can't help but find adorable. “I know that too. We raided the ruins of a convenience store in – “ 

She doesn't even have to cut him off; he bites his tongue and grins when it occurs to him that this isn't the kind of anecdote he should share in public. The cashier isn't paying attention, no one else is close, and so Sarah grins back. 

“See?” she says once she's paid, shoving the bag full of candy at him and leading the way out of the store. “You're not totally hopeless.” 

 

***

 

Some habits are hard to shed, especially when they were learned for the sake of one’s very survival, and Sarah finds a strange sort of comfort in the fact that Kyle shares them. She still doesn’t like crowds, and upon entering a room she still tries to pinpoint and memorize the position of every other person occupying it; Kyle tracks their movements on autopilot, almost as if he hardly notices he’s doing it, quick glances around at every little sound, heightened attention. His survival instincts were honed in different circumstances than hers, but even so, watching him helps to make her feel less alienated in a world oblivious to the fate it so narrowly escaped.

They’re in a diner the next morning, something both of them only manage to bear because it’s a couple minutes past seven and there are fewer than a handful people slouched in the worn leather booths around them. The waitress blinks at them with a tired but polite smile, and Sarah doesn’t bother asking him what he wants, orders pancakes for both of them.

“I worked as a waitress a few times, too,” she says, rambling as she watches the lazy bustle behind the counter. “For pocket money. And for cover, I guess. I wasn’t any good.” 

When she looks back at him, Kyle has turned ashen, his eyes flicking back and forth between Sarah and the woman behind the counter, currently rubbing grease stains out of her apron. Sarah raises her eyebrows at him, and he shakes his head, but answers anyway. “Before he sent me back, John told me you were a waitress. You know. In another timeline.”

In the timeline where she was innocent and oblivious, where they met and slept together and he died and she had John. Kyle isn’t particularly skilled at hiding his feelings; Sarah sees the sting of that omission reflected on his face all over again and tries not to get defensive in response. She was hiding that to protect him – or herself or both of them, she isn’t really sure – but she did keep it from him and he’s got every right to be upset with her. 

She takes a breath. There's a whole speech she's been fiddling with ever since... well, ever since she started accepting the fact that they're alive and they may stay that way and they'll have to _talk_. “I would have told you eventually. It's not an easy conversation to have, and we were kinda busy –“ 

“It's not about that,” he interrupts, lips curling into a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. 

And then Sarah catches on. During the last twenty-four hours Kyle's already tried to tell her about John a few times, stories from a future that won't ever happen now, and Sarah has yet to find a polite way of telling him she doesn't want to hear it. Her whole life up until this point was defined by the son who had been supposed to save the world, the distant shadow eating up everything else that mattered about her, and she can't figure out how to explain that, most of all, she's relieved. There's some sadness too, but she doesn't feel like mourning. Kyle knew him. She didn't. 

From the look on his face, though, in the meantime Kyle has caught on by himself. It's obvious he wants to talk, but he's holding back, avoiding another brush with a topic that she's only going to dodge. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, meaning it, even though what for, she's not quite certain. For his loss. For the rather... ungentle way he had to find out. For just not being able to _listen_. 

He reaches for her hand across the table, covers it with his, and squeezes. “It's not your fault.” 

Sarah turns her hand in his, palm up so she can squeeze back, and looks out the window, watching Pops cross the parking lot to join them. Pops, who taught her how to stay alive, who taught her a lot of things, but who just didn't have the skill set to teach her how to handle grief. 

 

***

 

They get bold after a week or two with no encounters of the mechanical kind whatsoever. In a little town a bit down the coast, they book into a small motel and stay there. Not for long; it's been six days, and Sarah is already getting antsy. 

It has, however, been long enough for Kyle to make a friend. 

The kid is the youngest son of a family next door, having gotten evicted a few weeks back and stranded here while both parents look for better work, for another opportunity, for a way out. He's about ten, and he latched onto Kyle from day one. He doesn't so much as look at Sarah; she can't blame him. She may have been destined to be the mother of the revolution, but she never saw herself as nurturing. Her priority would have been to keep John alive, anyway, train and educate him, not to bake him cakes and take him to Disneyland for his birthday. Kyle, on the other hand, has a way with kids. 

She briefly wonders what kind of man would have become, under different circumstances, without the war and the constant threat, before she remembers the young boy up in San Francisco who will grow up save and sound and sheltered by loving parents. She could check, in a decade or two, see for herself, compare and contrast the two. Will he have a family? A little boy of his own, or maybe a daughter or one of each, who won't have to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders? 

It's difficult to imagine, too early, and she lets go of the thought. 

Besides, despite the kind of world he grew up in, Kyle himself does seem – for lack of a better word – innocent. All wide-eyed wonder and easy trust, new to the idea that another human being could mean him harm. Which makes sense, Sarah guesses, what with mankind not being the dominant species on the planet anymore; danger used to come in the guise of machines, and once someone was confirmed human, they had a common goal, a common threat to rally against. This world doesn't work like that. He'll figure it out eventually, and Sarah already mourns the day he'll lose this blind faith in humanity. 

For now, however, she sits inside behind a slightly drawn-back curtain while Kyle watches the boy play in the front yard of the motel. All his toys are from movies or cartoons Kyle would have never seen, but his lack of context doesn't seem to matter to the kid; in fact he seems to rather enjoy explaining the story of each toy while Kyle listens patiently. Pops is talking at her, something about guns and ammo and suppliers for both, but Sarah isn't listening. While he's right – they shouldn't let their guard down, keep themselves armed, be ready – she wants to keep up her own pretense for a little while longer. Taste this freedom, make decisions that aren't informed by fear of an uncertain future. Find out who she is with all that gone. Get to know Kyle, figure out what they could be _together_. Two soldiers misplaced by time, and just this once, maybe, given a reprise. 

Nevertheless, neither her parents nor Pops raised her to be impolite or openly disrespectful, and so she tears her eyes away from the carefree game outside and gives her attention to her surrogate father, listens to him talk about arms dealers in New Mexico, not far, maybe a day's drive. 

He glances at the window, curtain now fallen down to hide the scene outside once more, and inclines his head. “Would you like me to tell Kyle Reese that we have to leave?” 

“No.” Sarah shakes her head and rises to her feet, heading for the door. “I'll do it.” 

 

***

 

They reach the border a few days later around noon, conceivably a bad time to go converse with underground arms dealers. Which is why Pops suggests he do it alone, wait for the right time, not in need of sustenance or shelter should he get stuck in the desert overnight. Sarah doesn't object, and of course Kyle doesn't either, so she gets them settled with bad daytime TV and Chinese takeout while Pops marches into the desert. On foot. Because he insists it'd be _less_ conspicuous, not more so, and experience has taught Sarah to pick her battles when it comes to talking him out of shit like that. 

They both end up sitting cross-legged on the bed. In a small act of mercy amidst robots and time travel, cheap takeout still tastes the same as it did in the Eighties – of grease and enhancers, mostly – and they still deliver it with chopsticks. Her mother taught her how to use them when she was maybe five or six, and it's one of the memories that is comforting rather than painful. 

Kyle has been without a mother to teach him basic life skills for longer than she has, and he's never encountered cheap Chinese _or_ chopsticks before. The kitchen in the motel is somewhat fully stocked, and she could tell him to get a fork and make do, but... no. 

Sarah sets her food aside and shifts in order to be able to reach around him from behind, chin resting on his shoulder as slides both of her hands over his. “Here,” she says, barely above a whisper so close to his ear. “Let me show you.” 

First, she adjusts his grip on the sticks, while he keeps himself very still, body pressing back into hers, letting her direct him as she pleases. Then she moves his fingers with the sticks held in them, picks up a single noodle and guides it halfway to his mouth, letting him finish the movement by himself. After he's done, he hovers over the carton, sticks in the air – waiting for another demonstration. Or maybe just waiting. She knows he's a fast learner, nimble with his hands, and something tells her he wouldn't need multiple attempts to wrap his head around such a small task. He's still frozen in place, breathing deeply; she can feel the rhythm of it against her chest. 

Instead of feeding him another noodle or piece of vegetable, Sarah takes the carton from his grip, the chopsticks from his other hand, and sets them both aside next to her own on the nightstand. He deflates at the loss of contact, tension flowing out of him, his posture signaling disappointment. 

He shouldn’t be worried about that. Sarah wraps herself around him even more fully upon her return, cheek pressed to his back, arms slung around his torso. Taking him in, enjoying the closeness; they haven't exactly had much quiet time alone yet. After a moment, Kyle's arms close around hers, rubbing up and down, slow soothing motions, as simple as they are wonderful, and not for the first time she wonders how he always _knows_. He possesses a level of empathy that's alien to her, not just because of the company she kept during the latter half of her childhood and her adolescence, but because that's who she _is_. Sometimes, as a teenager, she used to think that robots and computer programs and battle strategy made more sense to her than her own kind, and now she catches herself thinking that the part of John that understood the machines, saw into their minds well enough to outsmart them, must have come from her. She wonders if he took after Kyle at all, seeing as he was raised as a carbon copy of herself, never meeting his father until he was a grown man. 

As if he senses, yet again, that her mind is drifting to unpleasant places, Kyle tugs at her wrist, and she yields, rearranging herself until she's sitting in his lap, looking up and straight into his eyes. 

He says her name under his breath, his hand cupping her face like he did back in the bunker. Sarah doesn't want to think about that. She doesn't want to think about John or Skynet or the war or the life another version of her had to lead, a life without him by her side, and so she shakes her head slightly to make him let go, then leans in and kisses him. It's not their first kiss. It's not even the first time they've done more than kiss. Sarah isn't a very patient woman; they took care of that during the first week, in a rest stop bathroom while Pops was filling up the car. Not the most romantic setting, but then again, Sarah wouldn't know what to do with _romance_ anyway. 

She feels Kyle's hands settling on her hips, holding fast for all of thirty seconds before he seems to change his mind and tugs at her tank top. Somewhat reluctantly, she draws back and stretches her arms out over her head so he can strip it off her, carelessly tossing it to the foot of the bed. She reaches behind herself and takes her bra off too, then down to get his t-shirt out of the way as well. They have yet to discover what it's like to take their time, have this be a ritual rather than scratching an itch; the lives they've had up to this point aren't conductive to making them feel save in any given environment, relaxed enough to _let go_. Plus, there's the constant company, being on the run... the war against the machines may be over before it ever even began, chronologically, but you don't just un-become a solider in the span of a few weeks when that's all you've ever known. 

Sarah runs a hand down his chest, past the scars, tangible proof of Kyle's being a fighter. He's told her about a few of them; others she knows nothing about. Her eyes catch on the barcode on his arm – it's one of the things she was aware would exist, part of the future she would be trying so hard to prevent. Now, hopefully, he'll be the only person to ever bear that mark in this timeline. She tears her eyes way with some effort, unwilling to let the morose thoughts spoil her mood. 

Her hand wanders further south. She slowly undoes the fly of his jeans while he's watching her, one arm idly curled around her waist. As she slides it inside his boxers, he sucks his lower lip between his teeth, biting down. 

Sarah isn't sure she could ever take her time with him, even if they knew how, not given the raw need that unfolds within her every time she's got him undressed, pliant, so obviously hers and unconcerned with trying to hide that fact. He seems proud of it, almost, perfectly happy to go along with her pace, her directions, her wishes. One day, she vows, she'll turn that around on him, lay him out and make him tell her exactly what _he_ wants. But not now. Not when there's still this fever raging in her belly, urging her on. 

She dives in for another quick kiss before she climbs off his lap, laughing a little at the look of sheer disappointment on his face, and puts a finger to his lips, still wet with her saliva. 

“Don't worry, I'm not done with you yet,” she tells him, and reaches down to their bags, blindly fumbling around for the pack of condoms they acquired on their very first grocery store run. He grins when she holds them up, then tears one off and waves it around. 

His eyes follow its path when she lays it down on the coverlet and takes a step back to take off her jeans, and he doesn't have to be told to do the same, rising from the bed to discard his own jeans and underwear. Both naked, they resettle on the bed, in much the same position as before; him sitting cross-legged while she's sitting in his lap, legs wide around his torso, bent at the knee. She reaches between them and takes him in hand, gives him a few strong strokes before she rolls the condom on. 

When she looks up, he's staring at her again, wordlessly this time, his hands fanned out on her belly, and Sarah bends back, rising up a little in his lap, only to come back down and brush her cunt against him, enjoying the way his eyes fall closed, the accompanying groan. She reaches down to hold him in place, and then sinks down on him in a slow, single motion; it's too much, too fast, and it's goddamn _perfect_. On the last stretch, he meets her, thrusting up with just the right amount of force. His hands glide down her body until he's got them hooked around her, resting on the small of her back, and she slings her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply and leaving them both breathless. Finding a rhythm is pure instinct, their bodies moving as one; as if they were made for this, nothing else, not to be the parents of the resistance and stop a war, keep mankind from being irradiated, but simply to be together. As if fate never meant to tear them apart hours after they met, and as if they didn't have to fight so hard, endure so much, to change its course. 

Sarah comes whispering his name, eyes half shut, but it's enough to see the look on his face, the slight smile, the pride and gratification at making her come apart like this. She's got enough wherewithal left to retaliate, canting her hips just so, tensing the muscles in her lower abdomen to add some more sweet, sweet pressure on him, and he sucks in a breath, pulls her in closer. Maybe there's something wrong with how everything has to be a fight with her, winner and loser, action and reaction, but she has yet to hear him complain. Right now, he doesn't seem to mind much, in any case, as he pushes up inside her one last time before he bends down and presses their foreheads together, one hand sliding up her back as he comes too. 

They don't stay like this long, after they've both come down; he urges her to let him get up, tie off the condom and get rid of it, and when he gets back from the bathroom she's curled up on the bed, lying on her side, her legs drawn in. He lies down next to her and spreads the comforter over both of them, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His mouth opens and closes, but whatever he wanted to say hangs between them unspoken. 

 

*** 

 

Near Salt Lake City, they rent a cabin a little ways out of the city. Sarah finds she likes that option better than motels; it stings in some weird, not entirely unwelcome way, a reminder of the last time she saw her parents alive, but it's quiet and it's away from other people and she feels a whole damn lot safer than in some seedy dive with paper-thin walls and easy access for anyone with cash or a credit card. 

For the first time since... well, ever, probably, she sleeps in, woken by the sun tickling her face and not by an alarm or Pop's niggling or the unrest that inevitably comes with always trying to keep yourself battle-ready. Eight hours a night, seven days a week, doesn't really go with living under constant threat. 

When she blinks awake, the bed beside her is empty. She had been insistent about that; Kyle sleeps in here with her, and Pops stays in the living room area, doing whatever it is that he does during the night. A cursory glance around the room tells her that she's alone, that Kyle's not in here, and she pushes down the panic that threatens to rise in her, stupid though it might be. They're not sticking to each other's side twenty-four-seven. He's his own person. He gets to spend time away from her. But she still can't quite shake the feeling that their time is borrowed, and that he will disappear, sooner or later, leaving her unsure whether he was ever really with her in the first place. 

Sarah shakes her head and sits up. It _is_ stupid. She rummages around for her night shirt and then for her bag, unearthing a fresh pair of panties. Blanket wrapped around herself, she steps out onto the porch, and there he is, sitting on the ground next to the wall, fully dressed with his legs drawn close to his body, staring out at the barren grassland surrounding them. 

He looks up when he hears her approaching; she's not aiming for stealth. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” she says back and lowers herself down next to him, draping the blanket over both of them. 

He smiles at her with an implied eye roll – he doesn't easily get cold – but he accepts it and drags her into his arms. 

Sarah doesn't have to wonder why he left the bed, went out here to stare into the distance. It's the one thing that separates them, the thing that weighs on him while she tries to avoid the very thought. But some tiny part in her is more sympathetic to his grief, here, where the little girl she can hardly remember being is almost within reach. 

A few minutes pass, and then she detaches herself, getting up and holding out her hand to pull him up. It's more of a gesture than an actual offer, because it's not as if she'd be able to manhandle him anywhere. Knowing that too, he ignores her hand but stands, eyebrows raised. In lieu of and explanation, Sarah leaves him standing and slips back inside the room, gathering a piece of paper, a pen, and a lighter, folding the former and hiding all three under the blanket she's still carrying. Then she goes back outside and picks up an increasingly confused Kyle, threading their fingers together and leading him into the yard. There's a barbecue grill, outdated and dirty, and Sarah retrieves the paper, spreads it on the closed lid. She writes John's name on the blank page and hands Kyle the lighter. As funerals go, it's beyond pathetic, but it's all she can come up with on the fly. 

Kyle stares at her, incredulous, and she sighs. “We don't have anything of him. No ashes to spread, no personal items. I know this is dumb, and it might not even help. Still... it's worth a try, isn't it?” 

His expression remains unconvinced, but he takes the lighter and the piece of paper from her and opens the lid of the grill, holds the paper up in the air, and sets it aflame. He keeps holding it until the flames are almost licking at his fingers, and only then lets it sail into the dirty barrel, which is already full of old ashes. Then he pockets the lighter, closes the lid back up, wipes his hands on his jeans and takes hold of her hand again. 

Neither of them says anything. They walk back to the porch in silence, and they sit back down, wrapped in the blanket and with her head tucked underneath his chin, but Sarah likes to believe that they took another step forward today. And maybe that's exactly what both grief and survival are: just taking the next step forward, and another, and the next after that one, until finally the pain subsides. 

 

***

 

Four weeks without a Damocles sword hanging over either of their heads, four weeks on the run, and slowly but surely, normalcy is creeping in. These days, the majority of their grocery runs are done weekly at the nearest Walmart instead of at a gas station whenever they're running low on fuel. They left the cabin a few days ago; restlessness is written into both their DNA at this point, and Sarah figures it'll be awhile until they can leave that behind, or maybe they never will. But that's okay – she's got everything she needs right here. She has more than she ever thought she'd get, actually. She expected Kyle, sure, but he'd always been more of a looming figure. They'd meet, she'd love him, he'd be gone. The reality of him is so much more than she ever could have foreseen. 

He's driving their rental – which is new too, because while he knows how to drive, traffic rules are a novelty to him – and Sarah lets the world fly by, neat little suburban homes, sprinklers in the yards, pastel-colored bikes discarded on the driveways. Once upon a time, she lived in one of those, had a little bike that was orange and black and not pink because back then she liked tigers. It seems surreal, like the memories happened to someone else. 

Sarah turns in the passenger seat to look at him, and he glances over, quickly, before he returns his attention back to the road. “What's wrong?” 

And that's just the thing: nothing's _wrong_. But she doesn't believe in tempting fate, wouldn't say such a thing out loud, and so she settles for the next thought on her mind. “Do you think there's a version of me who had this?” She indicates the home-sweet-home-neighborhood they're still driving through with a nod. “White picket fence, mortgage, the whole nine.” 

She doesn't mention a kid, doesn't say his name, and finds it doesn't even feel like she's willfully leaving him out of the conversation. He'll always be part of their history, in one way or another. But he's not a part of their future anymore. 

Kyle shrugs, glances over again. “Probably not. I mean, from what I heard, any version of you would have had trouble making rent on time, let alone mortgage payments,” he says, almost with a straight face. “Foreclosure might have loomed. And I don't see you and gardening as a success story either.” 

“Fuck you,” she shoots back, socking him in the upper arm, and slumps in her seat before he has a chance to retaliate. “I can totally keep a plant alive. I'll have you know that I had a cactus in sixth grade, and it _thrived_ in my care until we had to move on and leave it behind. Also you've been watching too much daytime TV. A month ago you would have had no idea what any of those words _meant_. Life isn't a reality soap opera, you know.” 

He's grinning now, gaze straight ahead. “So I shouldn't prepare for the arrival of a long-lost half-sister out to steal me away from you?” 

Sarah rolls her eyes and opts to signal the end of that conversation by turning on the radio; the other day she found a station that plays mostly eighties rock, and it's a familiar little island in a sea of artificial pop songs. She bends to fish a candy bar out of the one of the bags in the back seat, then shifts and puts her feet up on the dashboard, watching him while he makes the turn to their little motel of the week. The room is paid for another couple of days, and after that, they'll pick another town on a map and head there. They don't have anywhere specific to go, no fights to prepare for, no plans beyond tomorrow. 

And somehow that's the most exciting thing she could possibly imagine.


End file.
